I have a superpower. It’s not fancy like flying or invisibility. I can predict the winner of the Bachelor/Bachelorette, well, my pick makes it at least as a second place winner. I’ve guessed correct winners before the first rose ceremony, even right after they come out of the limo… For those of you who don’t know about the Bachelor, it’s a television show on ABC where one guy, one very traditionally sizzling specimen of a man – with an unshaven beard and a cleft chin larger than my biceps – chooses someone he wants to marry out of 25 to 30 women. They go on a series of dates and, we, as the audience watch the cat-fighting and behind-the-back gossip, no doubt prodded by the producers. Hell, that’s the basic design of Reality-Entertainment anyway, throw people in a room and fuck with them. We’ve been doing this for centuries from the Colosseums in Roman times to Haunted Hay Rides. “Design me a way to fuck with them” seems to be the directive from above. This too, is so, with the Bachelor.

Part of my job and past job is to understand people. Understand exactly who they are, get in their heads. Figure out what they want and design it for them. Who are they really? Marketers call them customers, we call them users, psychologist calls them subjects. Ethnographers know that what a person says, and does, doesn’t necessarily define who they actually are. The actualization is in their core values and belief system. At the beginning of each episode they show a montage of the Bachelor’s current life, they’re passions, they’re lifestyle, who he’s looking for. This season’s lucky guy is Brad. Brad’s been on this show before but he’s a changed man from his days as a commitaphobe douchebag! He’s still wealthy, he’s still charming, but this time with psychoanalyzed self-esteem! When we last saw Brad, he’d dumped every single one of the ladies vying for his affection. All 25 of the single ladies. Wallowing in woe-is-me, why-am-I-still-alone-misery, he spent three years in therapy with a psychiatrist, (with a Ph.D even! as repeatedly pointed out in the show). This, is where things get tricky to predict the winner.

Psychiatrists might be good at helping you get over your past, but psychiatrists are bad for business. They make people less predictable, because they give the power of self-awareness. Marketers hire psychologists because they can make assumptions about a group based on experiments. Ethnographers are hired because they can analyze an entire culture. Psychiatrists on the other hand don’t just study people from the outside like psychologists and ethnographers, but they get in there and start rearranging the person’s mind. They’re like the Hunter S. Thompson of the soft sciences. These newly self-aware people are chaotic, they use ‘rationale’ and ‘reason’ to confront their issues. Businesses would rather sell sell sell to sheep sheep sheep. Not that the people I study are sheep, but it is inherently easier to understand a group of people who follow the rules, behave in a socialized normal manner, and are consistent in their actions. It’s easy to design for that. Someone who’s conflicted about who they are from this newly acquired ability to understand themselves, it’s like designing for a person with a split personality disorder. Who knows what you want? Jekyll or Hyde? The new you or the old you?

This season of the Bachelor is all fucked up for me now by that psychiatrist. He’s taken my super power away. Psychiatrists are my design Kryptonite. He’s planted seeds inside of Brad’s mind, as well as made him self aware of his actions. Brad, you were so easy to predict when you were just a self indulgent womanizer that decided with the smallest organ. Last time, you considered my Pick until the bitter end. She was the last person standing out of 25. She was the one! But you dumped her too, and now you’re back on the show with your new ability to psychoanalyze yourself thruoghout the show. After it doesn’t work for you this time though, the third time, when you are truly self-aware, that’s when I can predict the perfect person for you. That’s when I’ll know, that you’re actually just another closet gay Texan.

[If you’re ACTUALLY curious about the winner this time, I picked the Kansas girl as the winner (I don’t remember her name, Lisa? She had red shoes when she entered the house but had white shoes at the end of the show! How odd.). She didn’t even get any air time in the mansion though, and she wasn’t in the season’s previews at the end so I could very well be wrong:( My second place pick was Ashley S who didn’t care he used to be a douchbag and my third place pick was Emily, a sweet southern bell who will probably bail on the show because he’s not ready to take care of her kid. The show also got rid of showing the participant’s age. This is a huge deal. I don’t know the year they were born or their generation. I guess my other kryptonite is the “lack of data”.]

The luxury market and comedians have a lot in common. A previous pieces talked about comedians having a sense of hyper-observance of the world, they have a great grasp on reality; The Normal. The luxury owners are similar in that they also understand The Normal. They have to know normal so that they can know the Special. They pride themselves in knowing, understanding, and distinguishing from the norm. Comedians point out the ridiculousness of the Normal, luxury owners reject the Normal, Designers alter the Normal.

Like a newborn infant opening their eyes for the very first time, anyone who commits to becoming a designer must first learn to see Normal. Hyper-observation is the expert skill of a trained designer. They absorb the sensorial-landscape and can recite every detail they see like Jason Bourne. They can look at any human creation and tell you a story of how it came to be. Practicing to see the-way-things-are can help designer propose an alternate future. One that’s better.

Capturing Normal: Learning to see through Photography
The very first assignment that any photography course will give you is to just go shoot. I suggest doing this but only using the viewfinder. It forces you to focus on specific elements of the world around you. You’ll start looking at things like you never noticed before. The second assignment photography classes give you is to shoot from the perspective of highs and lows, the “worms eye view” and the “birds eye view”. This is about perspective. Teaches you to look at things from a “different angle”. Literally. Step 1 helps you pay attention, step 2 helps you look behind the curtain, past the facade.

Replication of Normal: Learning to see through Drawing
Everyone sucks at sketching. At first. But that’s not really the point, to get good. Sketching forces you to stare at something for an extended period of time helps you notice the nuances of a singular object. The thingness. What about the thing you’re drawing expresses it’s existence? What about it tells you that it’s a tree versus a potato. Sketching helps your brain communicate with your hands to replicate that reality. You have to be able to replicate normal before you can change it.

Sensing Normal: Learning to see through Film making
I’m actually really curious about this topic lately as I actually haven’t practiced with this medium enough. (I’ve also been trying to figure out what videocamera to buy if anyone has any advice  ) What I’ve learned so far is that it helps understand the world of Time. It visualizes the passing of time and helps you become aware of every second.

Altering the Normal
Once the practice of photography is mastered, the lessons go further to study studio lighting or altering compositions. With this effect you can create alternate realities, surreal image like Man Ray
to manipulate the perception of reality.

DaVinci got so good at drawing reality that he started to alter that reality with his lesser known pieces, the Grotesque. This skill could be applied to any inanimate thingness that desires to evolve.

Keith Loutit who’s work was chosen to be showcased by the Guggenheim creates film that subtly changes the perception of time by speeding it up, and changes the perception by creating an illusion with the depth of field. He shoots reality and re-represents it through a faux miniature set.

Learning to create, replicate, and sensing normal is the first step in taking that Normal world and designing an alternate.

We, designers, get caught up in attempting to create something prolific.

… but we help create moments like these. Isn’t that beautiful enough?